


runtime error 606

by Windian



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: Childhood Arc, Gen, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 23:43:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10524393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: 1,000 years after her creation, Protos Heis wakes up and sees the world for the first time.





	

The last battle against the target leaves Protos Heis' systems in a compromised state. It limps, and then crawls, hauling itself with bloodied fingers, blacking its nails with dirt, to locate a suitable spot to enable its self-recovery systems.

It feels no pain: pain is not a useful program.

 

[ENABLING: SYSTEM RECOVERY AND BACKUP]

[WARNING: MEMORY CORRUPTION AT 91%]

[RECOVERABLE DATA IN PROGRESS]

[RUNTIME ERROR 606. DATABASE COMPROMISED. TARGET DATA: LOST]

[ENABLING POWER-SAVING MODE]

[SYSTEM SHUTTING DOWN]

…

 

You wake up.

The grass beneath you is soft and springy with lichen. The sensation is overwhelming; leaves tinkling like tin foil in the wind that tickles your skin, raising pin-pricks on your forearms. The sky is such a deep, deep blue, and while all of this seems familiar, why does it also feel as though you're looking at it for the very first time?

Your eyes transfix on a butterfly: how it's wings flap twenty times a second, how the sunlight transforms its ochre hindwings a currant-red. How--

Hey, watch out!

A hand closes around your wrist. One of the boys who woke you up.

What's your name? they ask you.

[FILE CORRUPTION. NO DATA AVAILABLE]

I don't know.

The younger boy is Hubert. The elder boy is his brother, Asbel. His smile is all tooth and mischief, and when he asks you to come with them, you find yourself nodding.

You can still feel Asbel's hand on your wrist, though he's long since let you go. You lift your wrist and examine it, searching for the invisible marks that may, perhaps, have crept inside.

An indistinct thought drifts like dandelion puff on the breeze: that you might have spent the past one thousand years asleep, undreaming.


End file.
